One of the most essential game features in Minecraft is Enchanting wherein armor pieces, weapons, and other tools can be upgraded to deal more damage, to further reduce damage taken from enemies, to be more durable, and to perform basic tasks more quickly.
Aside from that, it also adds a flair of fantasy and magic into the game in parallel to witchcraft, potion brewing, and portals to other dimensions.
This guide will talk about everything you need to know about the best enchantments in Minecraft. It will be a long one, so let’s get started right away!
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Overall Best Enchantments In Minecraft
There is a total of 40 enchantments available in the game that can be applied to different items as stated on the official Minecraft website. This includes 2 curse enchantments which are the Curse of Vanishing and the Curse of Binding marked with red text in the game.
Out of all these enchantments, here are the top 3 overall best enchantments in Minecraft:
Mending
Mending is, by far, the most essential and must-have enchantment for all enchantable weapons, armor pieces, and tools in the game. It allows your gear to NOT break indefinitely since its purpose is to continuously refill your item’s durability by absorbing the experience points (EXP) orbs dropped when killing each mob.
With mending, your gear automatically fixes itself as long as you have the tool you want to repair in your hand or equipped in your person when picking up EXP orbs. Pairing this enchantment with a semi-automatic mob grinding you have in your base will ensure that your equipment will never break from running out of durability.
Unbreaking III
Unbreaking, especially at its third level, is always best paired with Mending even though the enchantment itself is good enough on its own. This enchantment increases the chances that weapons and tools used or armor pieces equipped will not lose durability.
Unbreaking is a very helpful enchantment especially in the early game when Mending is not widely available yet. It saves you your precious diamonds and iron ingots from crafting more tools when they break.
Both Mending and Unbreaking can be instilled into any enchantable armor pieces, weapons, and tools in the game. With this, they earn the top 2 spots as the best overall enchantments in Minecraft.
Fortune III / Looting III
Coming in close at 3rd place is the Fortune and Looting enchantments. Fortune can only be applied to tools such as axes, pickaxes, shovels, and hoes. While Looting can only be applied to swords.
Both of these enchantments essentially have the same effect which is to not only increase the number of items dropped when mining blocks or killing mobs but also to increase the chances of rare drops.
In contrast, Fortune and Looting do NOT increase the experience points dropped from mining blocks or killing mobs.
Best Minecraft Armor Enchantments
All Armor Types
These are the most important backbone enchantments that are must-have for all armor pieces (Helmet, Chestplates, Leggings, and Boots):
Protection IV
Protection is the backbone enchantment of all armor pieces. It has different other variants that are specific to certain damage types. These are the Projectile Protection, Blast Protection, and Fire Protection enchantments.
However, these enchantments are updated to be mutually exclusive from each other which prevents players from making overpowered armor by enchanting all of these damage reduction enchantments into their armor pieces.
Thus, only one of these enchantments can be placed into armor pieces. Protection IV is more preferred than these other damage reduction enchantments since it is helpful in any situation rather than only to specific types of damages.
Mending / Unbreaking III
As mentioned earlier, these enchantments should be in every enchantable item.
Thorns III
Having this enchantment in your armor pieces causes attacking mobs or players to be damaged when they deal damage to you whether it be melee or ranged as long as it is a direct attack.
It can be enchanted to any type of armor but the primary one taking the durability damage is the chestplate.
Aside from that, having 4 armor pieces with Thorns III can deal max return damage of 4 hearts at 61% chance. Nevertheless, the average return damage dealt is 3.09 hearts.
This is an important armor enchantment, especially for PVP players. But, when you are only playing survival in a single-player world, this enchantment is optional.
Helmet
The latest updates in Minecraft have included caves that can have deep water levels. Hence, using the correct helmets is convenient if you are planning to explore these kinds of caves.
Helmets should always have Protection IV, Mending, Unbreaking III. Thorns III is optional.
The enchantments below are the best additional enchantments you can have for your helmet:
Respiration III
Respiration extends the breathing time, the bubbles on top of the hearts, whenever you are underwater. It allows you to harvest tropical fish and coral in the sea and helps you explore cave lakes and Ocean Monuments.
Aqua Affinity
Aqua Affinity is an important enchantment, especially for players that have ocean or underwater bases. It is also essential when going deep-sea diving for resources and exploring Ocean Monuments.
The purpose of this enchantment is to remove the penalty to your mining speed for mining underwater.
Chestplate
Chestplates should always have Protection IV, Mending, Unbreaking III. Thorns III is optional.
Leggings
Leggings should always have Protection IV, Mending, Unbreaking III. Thorns III is optional.
Boots
Boots should always have Protection IV, Mending, Unbreaking III. Thorns III is optional. Aside from these, here are the other best enchantments that can be added to your boots:
There are 2 boots enchantments that are mutually exclusive with each other. These are Depth Strider and Frost Walker. Both of these enchantments are exceptional in different situations.
Depth Strider III
Boots that have the Depth Strider enchantment are best paired with a Helmet that either has Aqua Affinity, Respiration, or both. The purpose of Depth Strider is to remove the speed penalty when swimming underwater.
Paired with the proper helmet, it gives your character outstanding maneuverability while swimming. This is very helpful when you are going to raid an Ocean Monument.
Frost Walker II
Having the Frost Walker enchantment in your boots will turn water blocks around your character to frosted ice blocks whenever you walk over bodies of water.
This enchantment is for those that do not enjoy going underwater or for those that want to go island hopping while ice skating.
We recommend that you craft and enchant two pairs of boots that have each of these 2 enchantments along with the other enchantments. With this, you can easily deal with any situation.
Feather Falling IV
The latest Minecraft updates also include an increase to the world height limit. Cliffs and Mountains will be much higher along with the massive drops in caves.
Therefore, the Feather Falling enchantment is an important part of your boots’ enchantment list. This enchantment drastically reduces the damage you take from falling from a high place.
A summary table of fall damage taken with or without Feather Falling is available in the Minecraft Wiki.
Shield
There are only a few enchantments that you can apply to shields. This includes Mending and Unbreaking III.
The Curse of Vanishing enchantment is optional. This enchantment is advantageous during multiplayer player versus player matches wherein it prevents other players from picking up your shield when you die.
Nevertheless, only the 2 enchantments mentioned above are important in single-player survival worlds.
Best Minecraft Weapon Enchantments
Swords
Aside from Mending, Unbreaking III, and Looting III, here are the best Minecraft sword enchantments:
Sharpness V
Sharpness increases the damage of your sword by each level. This damage increase applies to every mob in the game from aggressive mobs such as zombies and skeletons to passive mobs which include animals and villagers.
Overall, this enchantment greatly improves the damage output of your sword.
Smite V
Aside from Sharpness, Smite is also a good contender for your sword to have increased damage output. However, the damage increase from enchantment only works for undead mobs such as zombies and skeletons.
Nevertheless, it is an important enchantment especially for the late game when you will be farming Wither Skeletons for their skulls in The Nether.
We suggest that you craft separate swords for this so that you will be ready for any situation. However, your main sword should be the one with Sharpness V.
Other enchantments such as Fire Aspect II, Knockback II, and Sweeping Edge II are optional ones since they only provide advantages in specific situations, but you can include them in your sword if you want.
Nonetheless, you can create an ultimate Minecraft sword with all possible enchantments.
Bows
Power V
The damage dealt by arrows shot using a bow is increased in every iteration of the Power enchantment. It can essentially cut your combat time in half and at a long distance.
As long you have practiced your aiming, this enchantment is the most essential you can have for your bow.
Punch II
Punch is similar to the Knockback enchantment in swords. However, this enchantment is more useful for ranged weapons instead of melee ones.
The purpose of this enchantment is to push your enemy back much further than normal hits. It is advantageous for both offense and defense.
Having this enchantment on your bow can keep enemies at bay at a long distance. With this, you can keep on shooting them until they run out of health or regeneration.
Aside from that, before rockets were added into the game, players used bows with Punch II shot on themselves to keep flying in the air with an equipped Elytra.
Flame
The Flame enchantment is essentially just the Fire Aspect enchantment of swords for bows. It allows you to rain down fire arrows upon your enemies.
A successful hit will result in a target engulfed in flames. This is good for ranged combat since burning enemies cannot transfer the fire on your character when they hit you since they will be very far away.
Infinity
One of the most essential enchantments for bows is Infinity. This enchantment allows players to have only a single arrow in their inventory that does not disappear whenever they shoot their bow.
Infinity is a tremendously beneficial enchantment, especially if you frequently run out of arrows. It also works with specialized arrows.
The only downside for the Infinity enchantment is that it is mutually exclusive with Mending. Therefore, you can only choose from infinite arrows or infinite durability.
Nevertheless, Infinity is preferred since Unbreaking III can still be applied to bows. Hence, bows will still last long enough even without the Mending enchantment.
Crossbows
Quick Charge III
The purpose of this enchantment for your crossbows is to drastically reduce the reload time of the weapon. Quick Charge III allows reloading your crossbow with arrows or firework rockets from the normal 1.25 seconds to only 0.5 seconds.
Commands can be used to push the enchantment up to level 5 (for the Java Edition only) which makes the crossbow reload instantly. This enchantment is great when paired with either Multishot or Piercing.
Multishot / Piercing IV
Both of these enchantments are mutually exclusive to each other. Thus, you can only have one of these enchantments on your Crossbow.
Multishot allows you to fire 3 arrows or firework rockets simultaneously at the cost of only 1.
On the other hand, Piercing is great for shooting a bunch of enemies in a tight space, especially in caves. It allows you to shoot through the mob and into other mobs behind them.
Choosing from these enchantments greatly depends on how you use and play with crossbows. In general, the Multishot enchantment is preferred over the Piercing enchantment.
Also, do not forget to include Mending and Unbreaking III in your crossbows.
Trident
Aside from Mending and Unbreaking III, here are the best enchantments for your trident:
Impaling V
The Impaling enchantment for tridents allows extra damage to be dealt on aquatic mobs. This is important if you are planning to raid an Ocean Monument.
Other than that, it does not have any other advantages since using your trident with Impaling V on mobs found on land deals no added damage.
Loyalty III
Loyalty is one of the most important enchantments for the trident. Since a trident can both be a melee and ranged weapon, Loyalty greatly improves the ranged capability of the weapon since it makes the trident return to the thrower when it is thrown at an enemy.
It is important to note that, the higher the level of Loyalty on your Trident, the faster it is to return to you.
Channeling
Another important trident enchantment is Channeling as it can force a lightning strike to on wherever the trident lands when thrown during a Thunderstorm. Aside from that, it requires an open space for it to work.
There are a few mobs that transform when hit by a lightning strike. They are as follows:
- Creepers turn into Charged Creepers – They are essential in getting mob heads.
- Villagers turn into Witches
- Pigs turn into Zombified Piglins
- Mooshrooms turn into their opposite color Mooshroom (Red to Brown and vice versa)
Riptide III
Riptide enables the holder of the trident to have alternative fast transportation under specific conditions. Using a trident with the Riptide enchantment whenever you are standing in any body of water, under the rain, or on top of snow will hurl your character towards the direction you have thrown your trident.
This enchantment makes the trident one of the fastest and most fun methods of moving around in the game, especially if you are playing in a Survival world. The only downside is that is it mutually exclusive to both Loyalty and Channeling.
Best Minecraft Tool Enchantments
Axe, Pickaxe, Shovel, & Hoe
Aside from Mending, Unbreaking III, and Fortune III, here are the best enchantments for your basic tools:
Efficiency V
The purpose of the Efficiency enchantment is to increase the speed at which each tool can mine its respective blocks. Instant mining of blocks will be available only at high levels of the enchantment such as at levels 4 and 5.
Aside from that, remember that you should use tools with Efficiency V along with Unbreaking III and Mending since you might regret it when your tool breaks when you are so focused on instant mining a lot of blocks for a project in a Survival world.
Silk Touch
The Silk Touch enchantment allows players to mine blocks as is rather than resulting in other items.
A quick example of this is when you use a Silk Touch pickaxe on a diamond ore block. Mining the block will drop a diamond ore block instead of diamonds when mining it normally.
This is greatly beneficial, especially for building projects when you need stones instead of cobblestones. The only downside is that it is mutually exclusive with the Fortune enchantment. Therefore, you cannot have it on the same tool.
We suggest that you craft 2 tools, especially for pickaxes, to have each of the enchantments.
For axes, Sharpness V can also be enchanted since it can also be used as a weapon especially because it can deal more damage than swords. However, there is also a new experimental enchantment for the axe called Cleaving.
Similar to Sharpness, Cleaving also increases the damage output of axes but not as much. Besides increased damage, it also includes a shield disabling effect which is extremely helpful, especially during person versus person combat.
The new enchantment has yet to be implemented on both Java and Bedrock editions of the game. It is still under development, but it can be accessed through experimental snapshots called Combat Tests which allows developers and players to test the balance of the combat system in the game.
Fishing Rod
Lure II
If you love fishing and if fish is your primary source of food, the Lure enchantment allows you to catch anything more quickly while fishing. The enchantment decreases the wait time to catch something from fishing by 5 seconds per level.
Lure III makes the fishing rod one of the fastest ways of getting food in Minecraft since fish can be caught every couple of seconds.
Luck of the Sea III
In the early game, the Luck of the Sea enchantment is an important part of the fishing rod. It increases the chance of finding rare treasure while fishing and, at the same time, decreases the chance of finding junk.
A summary table of all the drop rates of treasure when fishing is also available in the Minecraft Wiki.
Do not forget to enchant Mending and Unbreaking III on your fishing rod as well.
Elytra
Elytra is one of the most important tools in the game as it allows flying, especially in Survival mode. The essential enchantments for it are Mending and Unbreaking III.
The Curse of Vanishing enchantment, as well as the Curse of Binding, can also be applied to Elytras but they are not that beneficial if not used on player versus player matches.
Shears
Shears can be enchanted with Mending and Unbreaking III. Aside from that, you can also enchant shears with Efficiency V, but it does not have a lot of use since they can already mine leaf blocks fast enough.
Other than that, shears can also be applied with Silk Touch but in the Bedrock Edition only. Also, note that shears can only be enchanted using anvils and enchanted books.
Carrot On A Stick
This tool, even though it only has limited uses, can be upgraded using an anvil and enchanted books with Mending and Unbreaking III.
Best Nether Dimension Enchantments
If you are planning to explore The Nether dimension in Minecraft, here are the recommended enchantments you can use:
Fire Protection IV
Fire Protection, as the name suggests, greatly reduces the damage from any source of heat, especially from fire and lava which are abundant in The Nether. Furthermore, it is also beneficial when fighting Blazes as they can spew flame that not only can damage you but set you on fire as well.
Nevertheless, if you already have Protection IV in your armor pieces, that is already enough.
Soul Speed III
This enchantment can be added to your boots. It will enable you to run move faster on soul sand instead of being slowed down by it. An increase of 61.5% to your movement speed is added when running on soul sand using Soul Speed III.
However, every time you run on Soul Sand, it decreases your boots’ durability. Hence, it is strongly recommended that you use Mending and Unbreaking III on your boots that are enchanted with Soul Speed since there are a lot of areas in The Nether with soul sand and soul soil.
Feather Falling IV
Another important enchantment when exploring The Nether is Feather Falling. There are a lot of steep cliffs and canyons as well as deep drops in The Nether that can lead to your death.
Feather Falling makes it easier to explore The Nether dimension without that much fear since the risk of damaging yourself from accidentally falling in high places is gone.
Knockback II / Sweeping Edge II
A lot of mobs, especially Zombiefied Piglins can be found in The Nether. Even though they are non-aggressive, accidentally punching or hitting one can lead to all of them pursuing you all at once.
Hence, Knockback and Sweeping Edge are important enchantments for your sword when exploring the more dangerous parts of The Nether, including Nether Fortresses.
These can be life-saving in most situations especially if you are already on low health trying to dodge Ghast and Blaze attacks and hunting Piglins or Zombiefied Piglins.
Warped Fungus On A Stick
Similar to the Carrot on a Stick, this tool can be upgraded using an anvil and enchanted books with Mending and Unbreaking III even though it is only used to steer the Striders when riding them.
Best End Dimension Enchantments
On the other hand, if you are planning to explore The End dimension through the End gateways, these are the recommended enchantments to use:
Projectile Protection IV
When raiding End cities found on the outer End islands, the few aggressive mobs that you can encounter include the shulkers.
Their bullets are included in the projectile damage group. Hence, having Projective Protection IV can be beneficial in fighting against shulkers.
Nevertheless, if you already have Protection IV in your armor pieces, that is already enough.
Feather Falling IV
Similar to The Nether dimension, Feather Falling reduces the overall fall damage you can receive, especially when fighting against shulkers. You will receive a Levitation debuff when one of their bullets hits you.
The time of the debuff increases each time you are hit with a bullet. Hence, it can bring you up to the world height limit as long as the shulkers shoot you with their bullets.
Therefore, having Feather Falling IV on your boots when exploring The End dimension is like insurance if you are accidentally hit by a shulker bullet.
Conclusion
That’s it! That is everything that you need to know about the best enchantments in Minecraft.
Remember that, in Enchanting, you will need to have an EXP level of at least 30 to see and instill the level 30 enchantments found in the Enchanting Table to your item of choice and that 3 EXP levels will be deducted. Other than that, you also need a lot of EXP levels in enchanting using the anvil.
You may need to kill a lot of enemies to enchant a lot of items.
Also, do not forget to enchant your items with Mending and Unbreaking III whenever you can as they will prevent your items from breaking!
We hope that this guide helped you in getting only the best enchantments for your armor pieces, weapons, and tools in Minecraft. Good luck and have fun!
